


North Star in Somebody's Sky

by Devin Cage (shiny_silver_socks)



Category: Original Work
Genre: (not really but 'Sailors' isn't a canonical tag), Childhood Friends, Gratuitous overuse of sailing analogies, Kissing, M/M, Pirates, Regency, Romance, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-03 02:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16317368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiny_silver_socks/pseuds/Devin%20Cage
Summary: There was no use lusting after Colin, no matter how delectable he looked after spending a day working in the sun. That ship had sailed more than a decade ago, with Colin on it and Reggie at home with a broken heart.





	North Star in Somebody's Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justanotherray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherray/gifts).



> For justanotherray: holy cow I loved all your prompts!! This one bit me hard, and I have a whole, massive plot planned for these two. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to explore the full story, so I hope this slice meets your approval.

The numbers weren’t adding up. Reggie sighed and removed his spectacles, hoping that perhaps it was just a trick of the light, and somehow if he looked at them without the lenses, the numbers would magically balance. But no, when he looked back down at the ledger, the total in the expenditures column was still several hundred pounds higher than the income column. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

A low chuckle from the doorway drew his attention, and he squinted up at the blurry figure of Colin Munroe, the architect of his current frustration. “You’re starting to sound like a sailor, Reg.”

Reggie scoffed and replaced his spectacles, allowing him to see Colin clearly, and immediately wished he hadn’t; the man was so handsome it made Reggie’s heart hurt. A day’s worth of stubble softened Colin’s face, but it didn’t diminish the intensity of the scar that slashed across his cheek. Sweat darkened his tousled brown hair and droplets of it glittered on the exposed skin of his neck and forearms. His shirt gaped open scandalously, unbuttoned to the center of his chest to expose sweat-damp curls and the edge of a tattoo on his left pectoral that Reggie had spent far too many lonely nights imagining in full detail.

Reggie cleared his throat and forced himself to look back down at the ledger sheet. There was no use lusting after Colin, no matter how delectable he looked after spending a day working in the sun. That ship had sailed more than a decade ago, with Colin on it and Reggie at home with a broken heart. Pushing away the memory of Colin’s lips against his own, he tapped his pen against the ledger book. “We— _You’re_ losing money, Colin. Even with the increased yield that these improvements will create, I’m not sure the profit is enough to cover everything.”

Colin crossed the room and settled himself on the edge of Reggie’s desk, stretching his dusty breeches over his muscular thighs and crossing his arms over his chest. “You said we needed all this,” he pointed out.

Reggie sighed and rubbed his forehead, trying to keep his eyes from wandering to the impressive bulge between Colin’s legs. “I did. And you do,” he added, emphasizing the _you_. No matter how much he loved Lennox Estate, it didn’t belong to him; he was just an employee, though one with seemingly unlimited autonomy. “Holloway practically let the place fall down around his ears, and if you want to make a go of it, you’re going to need to put in some serious capital improvements. But maybe the scale was too ambitious. If we put off some of the drainage projects for future seasons—”

“I’m not worried about the money,” Colin said, cutting Reggie off mid-sentence. “What else am I going to spend it on?”

Reggie scoffed, thinking of a thousand other things Colin could spend his newly-minted fortune on, finding a wife chief among them. “It would be prudent to hold off on some of these projects until you have some profits coming in to offset the spending.”

Colin cocked his head to the side and looked intently at Reggie. “Would it be better in the long run to wait?”

Reggie pressed his lips together, ready to argue, then relented with a huff. “No. It’ll be less invasive to do all the improvements at once, rather than disturbing the ground season after season.”

“Then we do it all at once,” Colin declared. “I trust you. If you say we need it, you’ll get it.”

“Aye, but—”

“No buts, Reggie,” Colin said, laying a hand over Reggie’s and stilling the pen he’d been fidgeting with. “I promised you whatever you needed to make this a modern estate, and whatever else I may be, I am a man of my word.”

Reggie swallowed hard, staring at the contrast between his hand and Colin’s: where his was pale, Colin’s was sun-browned; where his hand was soft, Colin’s was strong and callused from years of working on warships. Several thin white scars criss-crossed the back of Colin’s hand, a testament to his service fighting Napoleon, while the only scars Reggie had acquired were from the sharp edges of books. “You risked your life for your money. I don’t want to spend it frivolously,” Reggie admitted, voice soft.

Colin’s fingers curled around Reggie’s, squeezing them firmly. “Spending my money on you could never be frivolous,” Colin murmured, rubbing his thumb against the palm of Reggie’s hand. 

Reggie’s heart slammed against his ribcage and he looked up to see Colin watching him intently. “Colin—”

“Do you know what war is like, Reg?” Colin asked, cutting off Reggie’s protest before it could begin. He looked away, staring blankly out the window. “It’s months and months of intense boredom, punctuated by hours or days of bone-chilling fear. It’s praying to God that you make it out alive, but knowing to do so you have to ensure another man doesn’t. It’s watching your friends get blown to bits by cannon fire, and thinking that at least they died fast, because so many don’t. It’s knowing that every single moment could be your last, and realizing that if you died, you’ve left something vitally important unsaid.” 

He looked back down at Reggie, his dark eyes shadowed. “You know what got me through the worst the French could throw at us? You.” He smiled, but there was no amusement in it. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t go to my grave without telling you the truth, and I’ll be damned if I’m made a liar.” He slid off the edge of the desk and knelt on the floor at Reggie’s feet, still holding Reggie’s hand tightly in his own. When their eyes met again, Reggie’s mouth went dry at the intensity of the feeling he could see in Colin’s face. “I don’t deserve you, Reggie. I hurt you when we were kids, and since then I’ve seen and done things no good man should see or do. I can’t handle loud noises and I’ll probably never sleep through the night again. You should tell me to go to hell, and leave me here to moulder and rot while you have a good life far away from me.”

Colin looked into Reggie’s eyes, and Reggie’s breath caught. “But I love you, Reggie. I love you.”

Reggie opened his mouth to speak, only to find his voice had utterly deserted him. His pulse was thundering in his ears, and he was certain this had to be some sort of hallucination, borne of sexual frustration and too much whisky, yet he was stone sober. Finally, he managed to croak out, “You love me?”

“Aye, I do,” Colin said, voice low. “When you kissed me that day, every single bone in my body screamed at me to kiss you back, to hold you and never let you go. But I was a bloody coward,” he spat, self-disgust clear on his face, “and I ran. I’ve regretted that every day since.” He paused, staring into Reggie’s eyes. “Say something, Reg. Anything, even if it’s tell me to go piss up a rope.”

Reggie swallowed hard. “I don’t want you to piss up a rope,” he said, voice still strained.

A slow smile spread across Colin’s face and he leaned in, raising up on his knees until his face was even with Reggie’s breastbone. “If I were a good man I’d walk away and give you time to think this over.” He reached up and wrapped his hand around Reggie’s cravat, pulling him down until their faces were nearly touching. “But I left all my goodness at Trafalgar.”

Their first brief kiss was etched into Reggie’s memory, and he’d turned to it in dark, lonely nights more often than he cared to admit, and part of him expected this kiss to be comparable. Though he recognized the shape of Colin’s lips, this kiss as different from the fumbling, shame-filled peck of their youth as a dinghy was from a ship of the line. Colin kissed with a hunger that sparked an answering need inside Reggie and he couldn’t hold back his moan as Colin’s tongue pressed inside his mouth. His hands found their way to Colin’s shoulders without any input from his brain, and Reggie’s cock twitched at the feel of the hard muscles under his fingers.

When they were both breathless and panting, Colin pulled away, and Reggie opened his eyes, dazed and aroused as he stared down at his teenage fantasies made flesh. No, he thought fuzzily, he would never have imagined an adult Colin looking at him with such heat and desire; even in his secret fantasies, it was Reggie on his knees, greedy for any scrap of affection Colin was willing to give. Reality was so much better, with Colin’s brown eyes blown wide with desire and his hair mussed from Reggie’s fingers, and Reggie’s chest tightened. “Colin—” He trailed off, shaken by the intensity of his own feelings.

Colin seemed to sense what Reggie needed, and he sat back on his heels, giving them both some space. He sat with an almost unnatural stillness, expression calm but resolute as Reggie gathered his thoughts.

Finally, Reggie took a deep breath and raised his chin, looking Colin in the eyes. “I’ve spent too long dreaming of how this would go to settle. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right. Go clean yourself up, and when you’re presentable, meet me in the dining room.”

The slow smile that spread across Colin’s face only fed the fire burning low in Reggie’s belly. “Aye-aye captain,” he said, voice dark with promise.

**Author's Note:**

> A [ship of the line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_the_line) was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century. They were massive and heavy, built to carry dozens of guns (cannons) that they would fire broadside at their opponents.


End file.
